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Thursday, 26 September 2013

My turn to party……

….at the Wool Lovers Blog Hop Party!!!….

When Denise asked me to join in on the Blog Hop, I was flattered and stunned at the same time! Of course I’d love to be a part of the blog hop……..but what on earth would I make???? I don’t work in wool very much at all…….My mother was the knitter and a great one at that, so I never needed to learn, despite her trying desperately to teach me……I think it had something to do with me being left-handed???!!!

Neither of us crocheted much (she did more than me) and I’ve played with fabric and embroidery threads for as long as I can remember…..making full-on fabric dolls, dolly baskets, blankets and clothes for my neice when I was still in my early years of high school.

I tried to convince Denise that maybe I wasn’t up for it, but she assured me I was…..so with thinking cap on……I decided to work in wool felts to create something with a little bit of stitchery (has to be some of ‘me’ in there!!!).

I’ve decided to call it “Coffee Shots” for all us coffee lovers out there……. you may just have the perfect person to gift one to!?!

And yes, you can make one yourself! Print out the tutorial using the ‘Print Friendly’ button at the end if you like and follow along. Here goes……

Print out two copies of the mug template and cut one ‘mug’ outline and one ‘inside mug’ outline (that’s the oval shaped piece at the top with the dotted line going through it!)

Pin the mug template to a double thickness of wool felt in your choice of colour (I used a caramel colour) and cut two ‘mugs’, ensuring you cut away the felt within the handle. This will give you a Mug Front and a Mug Back.

Pin the “inside mug’ template to a scrap of dark or coffee brown coloured wool felt. Mark the dotted line onto the right side of the felt and cut out one of these around outline. Don’t cut along dotted line at this stage.

Place a few drops of craft glue onto the reverse side of the dark brown felt and position it at the top of the mug front to resemble the coffee inside the mug. Make sure you don’t place the glue too close to the outside edge, nor too close to the centre……you only need a few drops to hold it in place as once it dries sufficiently, you will blanket stitch around the outside edge of the dark brown using two strands of DMC 434 and if the glue is too close to the edge, it will be difficult to stitch through. Same goes for the centre as when you cut through the dotted line, you want it to be as easy as possible so you don’t cut too far – dried glue through the centre would make this more difficult!

I have provided two sayings to stitch onto your mug. You will find these on the page that prints out when you print the mug template. You choose which one suits your ‘coffee-lover’ best or you could come up with one of your own.

Now, here’s where I have to be honest and tell you I had to try MANY different ways to plan my stitching onto felt as I hadn’t done it before and it’s certainly different to stitching on cotton fabrics. Lots of them just didn’t work! I started by trying printing the design onto freezer paper and ironing that onto the face of the mug,

stitching through it, dampening it and tearing it off, but lo and behold, the freezer paper was just too tough, and even when I dampened it (made it sodden more like it!) it pulled the threads out and left big clumps of freezer paper under the stitches that proved to be too difficult to remove. Same went for when I tried using

Tear-Away……..I traced the design onto the Tear-Away using a marking pen and a lightbox, placed it onto the felt and stitched through both, then, obviously, tried to tear-it-away!!! Aaaargh…….why does it have to be so difficult?????

Third time I tried plain old greaseproof paper (I think it’s called lunch wrap in the US??? Correct me if I’m wrong……just what someone told me!)……and this was the one that worked best of all (for me, anyhow!) Here’s what I did…..

6. Trace the saying onto greaseproof paper….you won’t need a lightbox for this as the greaseproof is quite transparent.

7. Position the greaseproof paper onto the Mug Front so that it is centred and pin in place. (you may like to tack it down, that’s up to you.)

8. Fuse lightweight interfacing onto the reverse side of the mug front, behind where the stitching will be.

9. Stitch the design through the greaseproof paper, felt and interfacing using 2 strands of DMC threads …..I used 816 for the main words and 839 for the words “Strong Coffee”

(this is what the reverse side will look like, but don’t worry…no one will ever see it!)

10 When you have finished stitching, tear away the greaseproof paper. You will need to use your quick-unpick to remove any small, stubborn pieces of paper that will get lodged under a stitch….be careful not to pull them out.

This is what the Mug Front will look like to this stage….

11. Here is when you can hand blanket stitch around the dark brown ‘coffee’.

12. Using the quick unpick, carefully ‘cut’ through both the dark brown felt and the lighter felt behind along the dotted line. Use the sharp embroidery scissors to ‘expand’ the opening, by neatly trimming away the edge of the marked dotted line. This will create a cleaner opening.

13. Place your Mug Front and Mug Back together, right sides out and pin. Using your sewing machine with matching thread, stitch around the entire outside edge using a 1/8 inch.

You may find that some edges don’t quite match, even with the best intentions…….use your sharp embroidery scissors to trim these up evenly.

14. Place your coffee ‘shots’ in the pocket and send them off to a dear coffee loving friend.

**NOTE – Since using this technique (which, don’t get me wrong, worked very well and quite easily and with good results I thought) I discovered Saral paper, which is a graphite transfer paper you can use as in step 6 but directly onto the felt. You would have to use a ballpoint stylus of some sort though as the Saral paper is quite fine and may tear easily. I had some success but it still wasn’t perfect.

After that I ordered some Sulky Iron-On Transfer Pens and these seemed to work a treat. You have to be careful with the hot iron though, to ensure you don’t ‘shrink’ the felt. I might try these alternative techniques properly with some more Coffee Shots….. I need to make some of these for my Birthday-Love stash box…..I know just who to make them for!!!! *wink*

I hope you liked my tutorial and find it useful and fun. In the meantime, don’t forget to go and visit the rest of the contributors and share the woolly love! Big woolly hugs to Denise for hosting the hop…… Here is the schedule for the rest of the week….

I don't have any experience with felted wool, although have been wanting to try. Thank you for coming up with such a sweet design to experiment with. I think this little cutey is going to become an adiction - an excuse - to use various colors for the mug. Thanks Wendy, you did great.

Thanks for the tutorial , very helpful and I was especially hay to have you explain how to mark on the wool , I had great difficulty with this on my project and basically winged it . Thanks for sharing !

Wendy, I LOVE your wooly creation! I KNEW you could do it. I think you used parchment paper (butter paper in Brazil). I would also try Golden Threads paper - I often use it to mark quilts before I quilt them, and it rips off so easily... Thank you for a great tutorial - I will definitely make one of these!

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